a punk-ass step-kid of the respectable theatre

Change of pace.

January 16, 2010

Not really a change so much as a re-assessment.

So far I’ve posted one play each week. That’s turned out to be a good pace. It’s little enough time that I have to push myself, but it’s enough time that I don’t have to choose between breathing and keeping up with this project.

And it means I won’t get to 100 by the end of 2010. I’m still going for 100 before I call it quits, but that’ll be a longer process than originally anticipated. I’m going to stick with “post one play a week” as the rule, but I’m lifting the expectation to do any more than that for the sake of a nice round number of notches in my belt by this time next year.

Hopefully no one who’s started following this project is too pissed off at me for wimping out a little here. Perhaps I should explain why I feel okay about it.

I set the original goal all hopped up on NaNoWriMo success and Julie & Julia*. I basically set up the blog at the exact same moment as I came up with the idea — and thank carelessness for that, because I never would have followed through with it otherwise, and I’m really glad I’m for serious doing this. But the upshot of that spontaneity is that I was thinking in NaNo terms, i.e. – more-or-less privately. When I was doing NaNo I was bouncing ideas off of pretty much anyone who was dumb enough to ask me how the challenge was going, and occasionally sharing an excerpt along the way, plus swapping gloriously chaotic “manuscripts” with Reston at the end of November, but none of that sharing was inherent to the project. I was ultimately (still am) working towards a text that would communicate with other people, but my only real priority during that month was to see how I would tell the story to myself.

This is different.

The decision to do this project in public view was spontaneous, but it was not arbitrary. This project is a way for me to practise writing, but here’s the thing: it’s not the act of writing itself that I need the motivation to practice. That’s about itchy fingers and broken brain cells and shit. That’s like eating and pooping and falling asleep. It’s one of the things my species does to keep going.

But here I am, wanting to write for the theatre. And I spend a lot of time all by myself chipping away at ideas that I don’t even know how to explain outside of the scripts I’m carving, and I get that being alone and not being sure if anybody else in the whole wide world is going to be able to make hide nor hair of what you’re doing is part ‘n parcel of playwrightdom.

But the other parts in the parcel are about collaboration**, communication, sharing, conversing…in short, I may write because I’m a bit of a loner, but theatre only really matters to me because it is about other people. And I could definitely stand to brush up on that.

So, if I was doing this for myself and only myself, sure, I’d go ahead and stack up 100 strange little vignettes in a year. But that’s not what I’m doing. I’m trying to make a kind of (sometimes non)sense that might work in a space outside my mind. And I’m going to need to give my mind a little more space in order to make that work.

So that’s what I’m going to do.

Again, I really hope anybody reading this isn’t too pissed. You’re the people who keep reminding me why it can be good to share. Not because you say sweet things — because you say thoughtful things. And that’s kind of my favourite. Thank you.

More Life,
Emmet

*I didn’t really like Julie & Julia very much (at least, not the Julie parts), but sometimes it is time to admit that I can be inspired by pretty embarrassing things.

**Do you want to collaborate with me on anything involving any of these tiny plays? That could be fun. I would be down with that. I’d also be down with you going off on the sly and turning one of them into a YouTube video or a mini-opera or a new kind of alcoholic*** salad dressing and reporting back to me. Either way: emilythesecond (at) gmail (dot) com, cats and kittens.

***Tonight me and my brudder realised that “alcoholic” can refer to both an individual who is dependant on alcohol and an inanimate liquid/object which is imbued with it, and that’s pretty weird. We don’t think there’s anything quite as weird as that, but if you know a thing, put it in comments, bitch.

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Well I’m still going to do 100 this year. AND FAIL SPECTACULARLY, MUAHAHAHAHAHA ….wait, that wasn’t a time for my evil laugh at all… aww.. 😦

*ahem*

Anyway, I think this is a very good idea.

RE: Weird

Study the words “look” and “sure” for long enough, and they will, forever after, look somehow *wrong*. (this may only be true in actual writing. I’m not sure if it works with computer [or any other kind of] screens. Also if you stare at somebody’s ear long enough, all future ears will begin to gross you out. That second one *may* just be me, but, ears are pretty weird. I will continue this particular search, though.

julie&julia made me want to start a big bloggified project as well.
movies get into me like that.
ratatouille makes me have to cook.
and matilda makes me want to read and move stuff with my brain powers.

Rabu: To each their own, I suppose. I don’t mean gross in an unclean way (although certainly that’s a possibility) but more just…I guess the shape. And people can have nice ears. Staring at them just…bugs me. I dunno.

Who are you this time?

My name is Emmet Forsythe except when it's Emily Cameron except when it's something you can only say out loud if you're barefoot in the medium-lesser outdoors somewhere or at a vaguely clandestine meeting of potential rabblerousers anywhere (and even then you'll probably come off a bit dodgy). I am writing 100 tiny plays, and you can read them on this blog. You can also pretty much do what you like with them, especially if you tell me about it.